Travels, travails, and stories in Korea and elsewhere — "Been inclined to wander / Off the beaten track …. I've held my licence / It came with birth / For self reliance on this earth" – Judas Priest, "Grinder"

Category Archives: Women

Today’s post will be a quick one, for it’s meant to show how we can find many Manosphere ideas in popular literature

Charles Bukowski’s a favorite writer of mine. His work might be described as “drinking various liquors and screwing various women,” but his autobiographical protagonist, Henry Chinaski, did more than just that. His novel Women‘s a veritable compendium of hookup situations and how he handled them for better or worse. Alongside his typically excellent dialogues, he gives us this nugget:

“My problem was that I couldn’t rest my cock-godhead like I could my typer-godhead. That was because women were available only in streaks so you had to get as much in as possible before somebody else’s godhead came along. I think the fact that I quit writing for ten years was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me. (I suppose that some critics would say that it was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to the reader, too.) Ten year’s rest for both sides. What would happen if I stopped drinking for ten years?” [Emphasis mine]

Up there is the scarcity mentality many men have women it comes to women. The man must hang on to whatever women he can because he has no idea now long they’ll last. Rational Male has written more about scarcity mentality here, as have many other ‘Sphere writers and how it can be detrimental to a man’s psyche because it breeds desperation. Enjoy.

This was saved on my iPad over a year ago. It’s a concise summarization of much of the ‘Sphere from a page I can’t remember. If anyone out there knows the original page, add a link to it in the comments section. I’ll comment further later on.

Women want options when their value is high, commitment when it is lower.
They want hookups when they want them, commitment when they don’t.
They want sex when they want it, resources when they don’t.
They want bad boys when they want them, betas when they don’t.

The thing is, that they expect all of this, while men are expected to have no options about value/commitment, sex to only occur on a woman’s terms, and no sex, commitment, and be stripped of their resources when they are withheld.

there’s an on-going trend of referring to women (especially little girls) as “princess”. personally it makes me shudder when i hear a little girl being called a princess. when a girl hears this often at such a young age fosters a huge sense of entitlement.– Dannyfrom504, “The Princess vs The Angel

Danny’s recent post brought back a couple memories from my first few months over here:

1. A Korean-American buddy saying, “Buckeye, Korean girls are similar to American girls in that many have the princess mentality.”

2. This exchange from with a 1st grade HS girl during class:

Upon seeing another girl’s pencil case with the Disney princesses on it (and the word princess) I said, “Oh no…don’t be a princess.” I’d said it to no one in particular, but one girl, whose English was quite good, perked up on hearing it and gave me a puzzled look. I said to her, “So many American girls want to be the princess.”

She nodded and considered this for a moment. She was searching for the best expression.

“But… they can’t be,” she said.

Just so, I thought. She had the right of it. They can’t be princesses because they’re ordinary girls in an ordinary small town. They aren’t royalty. And yet, like Danny explains, many of us love to foist the “Princess” labels upon girls as if it’s something they need to be.

In the time I’ve spent over here, I’ve encountered many princess types, but more have been like Soo-young above, who understand that as pretty as they be and as virtuous as they may act, they’ll never be princesses.

This has been my experience as well. Coffee shops are more for love lorn couples to imitate their favorite dramas or be alone together with their smart phones. This picture brought to mind a couple I saw in Uijeongbu. Fully half of their “date” looked like the picture and the other half was the two of them doing stuff with their smart phones. Sometimes they messaged by themselves and sometimes he showed her stuff on his iPad, but the phones were in use at every instant. Even as I write this, I’m at a cafe with my neighbor and we’re both plugging away on our respective blogs while surrounded by couples who depend on their phones for conversation. I have to wonder, does the man’s plan actually call for “sitting in a coffee shop and clicking on various Internet links to comment on,” or something similar? With all the emphasis the youth attach to coupledom over here, not too many look like they’re actually enjoying themselves beyond what they can about with their phones.

Repeat that five, ten, or however many times it takes to get it engrained in your brain. Then go outside, take five deep breaths, come back inside, and repeat “a man needs a plan” ten more times.

A man needs what?

A plan.

A plan, dang it.

Too many guys just expect stuff to happen. It doesn’t work like that. A successful date, evening, weekend, week, month, life requires a plan

Here’s why:

Haha! I think a lot of guys think that, but personallyI find it kind of annoying. Especially in the era of the text message. Dudes be all:

“You wanna hang out sometime?”

Me: Ok…

(a week later)

“So we should hang out.”

Me: Ok… … …. when? What does hanging out entail?

“Do you want to maybe go to dinner?’

Me: Sure.

“Where do you want to go?”

I mean, I don’t know. Did you not have any plan here? Have you ever been to a restaurant you like? How about you take me there so I can find out something about your tastes and interests? If I just want to go to a restaurant that I like I can do that on my own anytime.

But I guess that’s because I actually care about getting to know a guy and not just having him pay for my dinner.

Let me repeat what she said: “Have you ever been to a restaurant you like? How about you take me there so I can find out something about your tastes and interests? If I just want to go to a restaurant that I like I can do that on my own.”

It’s not a difficult concept. Having a plan, or at least a semblance of one, will take you far in life. One thing I can’t help but love about Koreans is they always have a plan for what to eat come meal time. A co-teacher or whoever will say, “Let’s go get mandu for lunch” or “How about eating noodles? I know a place.” And away we’ll go.

On a more personal note when Lady Buckeye first came to my country town, we went to a restaurant I’d been to with a co-teacher in the past. The place was known for grilled samgyeopsal and tofu, and since it was so good, the place merited a return trip.

I can’t remember if she asked me where we were going or if I told her, but either way, I made the plan to go there. You can do the same. Like I’ve mentioned before, a man can ill afford indecision at any time of the day.

A man needs a plan.

Go forth and kick ass.

* “Engrained in the brain” is something a colleague likes to say. I like the rhyme in it.

I had written a blurb about why this song is here, but it must have gotten lost in posting. The Velvets have been a long time favorite; _Loaded_ is my favorite LP of theirs. It may indeed be their best one. As it played over the headphones earlier, I remembered that I’d meant to write something about “New Age” and its lines about the fat actress being “over the hill” and “looking for love” for two reasons:

One, their relevance to the Manosphere. Others have written at length about the 30 and 40-something women who squandered their earlier years on throwaway relationships and decided to “look for the one” after realizing they didn’t want to end up as cat ladies.

Two, the song came out in 1970, making Lou Reed’s lines eerily prescient. As I mentioned on 80 Proof Oinomancy’s most recent post, we in the ‘sphere and elsewhere have much to gain from studying music and literature. The truth is out there. Enjoy the slow burning melodies and the cynical lyrics…